#I sometimes find it heartbreaking talking to people who don't know geology when they can't find the words to describe

[iamthepulta]

Here's the thing about geology as a science: 90% of what you learn in school is vocabulary. You aren't learning about things. Chemistry and physics and mathematics theoretically taught you The Tools and how to use them.

Geology is about being able to describe the world around you in shorthand. Chemists look at CuFeS2 and say "copper-iron (III) sulfide" and they'd be correct. I look at CuFeS2 and say Chalcopyrite because "copper-iron (III) sulfide" is a lot to say; but more importantly, Chalcopyrite can also be a copper-iron (II) sulfide. Bornite (Cu5FeS4) is also a "copper-iron (III) sulfide".

However, when you look at Chalcopyrite (Cpy) and Bornite (Bn) in the ground, they look very different and they behave differently too when you try to get the copper out. So geology shorthands their chemical formulas to names.

I really love this cuneiform diagram because it illustrates the fundamental need of geology: that back in 2000BC the Babylonians and Dilmuni had the same challenge creating words that described ore (desired rock coming out of the ground), copper (the element), and copper minerals (what would produce copper).

(Metallurgy in Antiquity, Forbes, 1950)

The same thing happens in structural geology and geomorphology. You can say, for example, that a "fault zone" is where the earth has fractured, but you immediately want to know how. "Normal fault" or "Thrust fault" can describe the direction of movement and relative angle into the earth. But if you say "Graben" to a geologist, they immediately know sense of shear, angle into the earth, and location you're referring to in that system.